Blitz It Friday

This is a great week for me to link up to Blitz It Friday at Organized Everyday because I actually cleaned! Shocking, I know.

Yesterday, L had an upper endoscopy at Children's Hospital. This was all scheduled at the last minute (about 10 days' notice) yet we managed to get my parents to come out here from Chicago. T isn't allowed in the hospital, so it really helped to have my parents here to watch her so both mommy and daddy could be with L.

All of this to say that Wednesday morning I needed to do a serious blitz to get ready for their arrival that afternoon. Nothing like expecting guests to get me off my butt. For two hours (not including a few quick breaks), I got busy. Here's what I accomplished:

-started laundry

-cleaned guest bathroom

-changed laundry

-loaded and ran dishwasher

-cleaned the gunk between the kitchen sink and backsplash (yuck!)

-cleaned the downstairs half-bath

-tidied the living room floor

Thankfully the two bathrooms were in pretty good shape before I started. I'd cleaned the upstairs toilet and the downstairs bath a week ago.

There you have it, my longest blitz to date. For more cleaning bonanzas, go here.

By the way, the endoscopy went fine, we won't know the results of the biospies and bloodwork for another week but visually the esophagus looked good. And L was a super-trooper, so resilient, today he's literally jumping off the furniture. (For background on the endoscopy, you can read here.) Thanks for visiting!

TILT-- Haagen Dazs "Caramel Cone"

I'm a little late to the party this evening but here's a quick post about a new love of mine. (My apologies to Diaper Diaries and anyone else eliminating sweets this Lenten season.) It's the "Caramel Cone" flavor from Haagen-Dazs.My husband and I stumbled on this flavor a few months ago when Haagen-Dazs was on sale (2 for $5) at our grocery (the only time we buy fancy ice cream instead of our usual generic ice cream sandwiches). We quickly agreed it's our favorite flavor. It was on sale again this week and we are once again enjoying our pints. Here's the description from their website:

"this creamy blend of caramel ice cream with rich caramel swirls balances the sweet crunch of chocolate-covered cone pieces for a harmony of caramel, chocolate and crunch in every bite"

The caramel base is super delicious, and I won't lie, I love ice creams with chunks in them for me to dig for and devour. These chocolate-coated waffle cone pieces are yumm-o. 'Nuff said, go try it for yourself.

For more things people love, visit Diaper Diaries. Thanks for visiting! What's you favorite ice cream flavor?

Resolution Progress Report

I didn't intend to use my blog to keep me accountable to my resolutions, but the boys are camping out in the living room tonight and I'm blowing off steam before I hit the hay so here goes....

Making the bed. I'm doing okay with this one, to my surprise. I have never in my life been a consistent bed-maker. Even though it was one of my assigned chores growing up--my poor mother was constantly nagging about it--yet I never made it a habit. But these days compared to all the hard work I do, it's been pretty easy to pull the blankets up and call it good. It's not every day, but I'd say the bed gets made 75% of the time.

Highchair tray. I'm not any better at cleaning it off after each meal. Fact is, meals are really tough for me. I make food my food, T's food, and L's food--not much of it overlaps--and then T makes an enormous mess and L fights me over what, when, how much to eat. It's exhausting. So when we're done, I want to run screaming from the kitchen, not stick around and clean. However, when I'm in the kitchen between meals (to grab a snack, load the dishwasher, or whatever) and I notice the messy tray, I'm likely to wash it then rather than leave it for the next meal. That's progress, right? In any event, I like when it does come time to prepare the next meal and the tray is ready to go. So I'll keep at it.

Thank yous. It took nearly two months (no thanks to two weeks of stomach virus going around our house (excuses excuses)), but Christmas thank-you-notes are done! Obviously, there's much room for improvement, but it's progress.

Friendliness. Okay, this one I'm trying, I'm pushing myself, and hopefully I'm nodding and smiling more at strangers and greeting my fellow preschool parents. However, there have been several incidents where in hindsight I've realized I missed an opportunity to be friendlier, to speak out and help my fellow man. Work in progress.

Church. I'm happy to say the 4 of us made it to church as a family a couple weeks ago and it was a success. We sat in the "cry room" and L had fun interacting with the boy in the pew in front of us (staying quiet and within our row) and T lasted a good long stretch before I had to put her on my lap. Unfortunately, mass went on forever and the kids got restless and we weren't able to stay to the end. We left after an hour and fifteen minutes and Communion wasn't even over. Then we got the stomach bug and, based on its timing, I have to wonder if that's where we picked up the germs. So we haven't been back. We may try another parish, it has a smaller cry room but a shorter mass.

So that's where I am mid-February. How are your resolutions/goals going so far?